364. What is the relationship between freedom and responsibility?
(Comp 364) Freedom makes people responsible for their actions to the extent that
they are voluntary, even if the imputability and responsibility for an action
can be diminished or sometimes cancelled by ignorance, inadvertence, duress,
fear, inordinate attachments, or habit.
“In brief”
(CCC 1745)
Freedom characterizes properly human acts. It makes the human being responsible
for acts of which he is the voluntary agent. His deliberate acts properly
belong to him. (CCC 1746) The imputability or
responsibility for an action can be diminished or nullified by ignorance,
duress, fear, and other psychological or social factors.
To deepen and
explain
(CCC 1736) Every act directly willed is imputable to its
author: Thus the Lord asked Eve after the sin in the garden: "What is this
that you have done?" (Gen 3:13). He asked Cain the same question (Cf. Gen
4:10). The prophet Nathan questioned David in the same way after he committed
adultery with the wife of Uriah and had him murdered (Cf. 2 Sam 12:7-15). An
action can be indirectly voluntary when it results from negligence regarding something
one should have known or done: for example, an accident arising from ignorance
of traffic laws. (CCC 1735) Imputability
and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by
ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other
psychological or social factors.
Reflection
(CCC 1734) Freedom makes man responsible for his acts to the extent that they are voluntary.
Progress in virtue, knowledge of the good, and ascesis enhance the mastery of
the will over its acts. (CCC 1737) An effect can be tolerated without being
willed by its agent; for instance, a mother's exhaustion from tending her sick
child. A bad effect is not imputable if it was not willed either as an end or
as a means of an action, e.g., a death a person incurs in aiding someone in
danger. For a bad effect to be imputable it must be foreseeable and the agent
must have the possibility of avoiding it, as in the case of manslaughter caused
by a drunken driver.
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